A Helping Hand
by coolbyrne
Summary: Grissom. Sara. Paper cuts. Metacarpals. Etc.
1. The task at hand

TITLE: A Helping Hand

AUTHOR: coolbyrne

CLASSIFICATION: GSR

RATING: Definite G/PG (One use of a profanity.)

SPOILERS: None.

ARCHIVE: If you like it.

DISCLAIMER: CBS/Zuiker/Petersen/Et al- all the credit. Me- no money.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: My first attempt at Grissom/Sara fic. Be kind. Rewind.

FEEDBACK: Constructive criticism/generous compliments are greatly appreciated. Flames will be mocked in other forums. Feel free to send any combination of these options to: fugitive@ihateclowns.com

SUMMARY: Grissom. Sara. Paper cuts. Metacarpals. Etc.

*

He shuffled to the door as quickly as he could, not to fulfill an act of good manners, but rather to quiet the incessant knocking that seemed to be intensified via the woofers in his ears. He didn't even bother to see who it was before turning the knob and yanking the door open. The offending object swung wide and revealed the perpetrator. 

"Sara," he said, hoping it sounded somewhat more welcoming to her ears than it did to his.

"Grissom!" she exclaimed by way of introduction, completely oblivious to his current demeanor. "You won't believe this; remember when Calloway said he wasn't even at the house at the time the murder was committed? He lied." She waved a file triumphantly in the air. "I was double-checking the times he gave us to the time stamp on the receipts and… I woke you up."

Grissom's mouth twitched and he lazily raised his eyebrows. "It *is* two in the afternoon."

Her smile dropped and her shoulders sagged, as if she was just noticing his disheveled appearance for the first time. "I'm sorry. I just… it was nagging me and… and then I started looking at everything from the beginning and… I found one of the receipts and…," she took a breath. "I'll talk to you about it tonight at work."

As she turned to leave, he willed himself to say something to make her turn around, to make her stay, to bring back that damn smile of hers. His mouth opened several times before words finally formulated.

"Sara." When she turned to his voice, his tone softened. "I'm up. You're obviously up," his mouth twitched again and he tried to ignore the 'we are not amused' face she gave him. "Why don't you come in? It's better to work on these things while they're still fresh in your mind."

There it was. That smile.

She practically bounded past him. He shook his head and closed the door behind them.

*

He placed the coffee cups down on the small island, careful to avoid any of the pieces of paper she had laid out to prove her point. He pulled up a stool across from her and gazed down at the information.

"So he couldn't have been in Reno the time he said he was," she stated.

Grissom rested his chin in his hand and tried to process the evidence. "What about the restaurant receipt dated the day of the murder?"

Sara held up her trump card. "I took it down to the guys in counterfeit and forgery?" His eyebrows encouraged her to continue. "It's been altered."

He reached across the small counter space between them and took the paper out of her hand. Somewhere during the exchange he heard a sharp exclamation of pain from Sara.

"Ow! Shit! Paper cut!" She held the injured finger in a tight fist and winced.

"Don't move," he said, as he stood up and made his way to a nearby drawer. "I've got a first aid kit."

Temporarily distracted by his gesture, she objected, "No, Gris. It's okay. It's just a paper cut."

He brought the kit over to the counter and sat back down. Clearing the paper away, he opened the bottle of antiseptic and moistened a cotton ball. "There was a case back in '87 of a guy who had to get his arm amputated because of the infection caused by a paper cut."

"Seriously?" she asked.

Looking at her with his best serious face he replied, "No. Now give me your hand."

Despite the smirk that followed his remark, she relented. As she placed her hand into his outstretched one, she tilted her head and remarked, "I thought first aid kits were supposed to be in the bathroom. But you have one in your kitchen."

Holding her hand in his left palm, he carefully dabbed at the small incision with the cotton ball in his right hand. "Spoken like a true woman who's never been in one." He looked up and saw her scowl. "Besides, while it may be true that most household accidents happen in the bathroom, they're the type of accidents that a first aid kit rarely fixes."

He placed her hand gently on the counter and reached for a Band-Aid. Opening the package, he then very carefully wrapped it around her finger.

"You're very good at this," she marveled softly.

"You sound surprised."

She shrugged and amended, "Maybe not surprised. I'm just not used to seeing you deal with live people so much."

He mirrored her smile and teased, "Is that so, Ms. Catalogue?"

"Hey, that's not fair. I'm working on that," she objected.

The room filled with their shared laughter. She looked down and realized her hand was still in his. She didn't realize how long she must have stared at her long fingers resting in his warm palm until she became vaguely aware of the stretch of silence between them. When she looked up, she met a pair of cobalt eyes looking intently into hers. She wondered if the flush that crept up into her face was as evident to his eyes as it felt under her skin.

"Did you know that when you blush, your stomach lining reddens as well?"

Well that answered that question, she thought. In an attempt to divert the attention, she asked, "Is there anything you don't know, Gris?"

He looked off to the side and pursed his lips, as if seriously contemplating the question. After a moment, he looked down at her hand and admitted, "I didn't know how nice your hands are."

Could she get any redder, she wondered. She made a motion to pull her hand away, but his fingers curled firmly around her wrist, keeping her in place. He turned her palm over and leaned closer to examine the back of her hand. The warmth of his fingers underneath her wrist spread invitingly through the soft skin, down her arm and directly to her stomach. With the fingertips of his right hand, he traced a line from her wrist to the tip of her middle finger.

"You have unusually long phalanges," he noted. Looking up, he seemed to wait for some kind of permission to continue. He must have found it in her eyes, because he went on.

"There are 27 bones in the human hand, which is attached to the body by two bones, the radius and the ulna." With this, he touched each bone as he named them. "They lead up to the wrist, which is comprised of eight bones or carpals." The thumb of his left hand pressed down at the base of her hand. He made small little circles as if trying to feel out the aforementioned eight. "Although you can't detect them because of the transverse carpal ligament that protects your wrist, the capitate is the largest bone and the pisiform is the smallest. In fact, besides the stirrup bone in your ear, it happens to be one of the smallest bones in the human body."

He was leaning in so close that she could feel his breath on her hand and see the tight curls that hugged close to his head. It took every ounce of restraint she had not to close the few inches that separated them and inhale his scent. She was well-versed in the anatomy of the hand, but whether it was the soothing cadence of his voice or the feel of his hand around hers, or something resembling a bit of both, she was in no hurry to interject.

He turned her hand over. "From the carpals, we move up to the bones that make up the palm, the metacarpals," he continued, as his fingers gave physical form to his descriptive words. The softness of his touch across the sensitive skin of her palm sent a ticklish tremor through her, and she instinctively closed her hand, trapping his finger. Grissom looked up into her eyes and gave her an amused look. He glanced down to their hands, then back up to her face.

With an exaggerated innocence, he asked, "May I continue?" 

Answering his look with a smirk of her own, she unfurled her fingers and let her hand lay flat in his once more.

He peered into her palm and pondered, "Now where was I?" His index finger hovered over her ticklish palm and she willed herself not to move though the subtle twitch of her fingers betrayed her. She couldn't help but laugh. He tried to scowl, but he couldn't deny the sheer joy of her laughter.

"The metacarpals," she offered helpfully.

"What?" he asked, momentarily distracted.

Her eyes guided his down to her hand. "The metacarpals. That's where you left off."

"Ah. Thank you, Nurse Sidle." Pressing into her palm to avoid a ticklish repeat, he drew his finger up to the base of her pinky finger. Taking it between his thumb and index finger, he gently rolled it from base to tip, naming the bones as he went. "These are your phalanges, which make up the remaining 14 bones in your hand," he recited. "This," he squeezed gently between the base of the finger and the first knuckle, "is the fifth proximal phalanx bone. This," he went on as his fingers moved up between the two knuckles of her finger, "is the fifth middle phalanx bone. And this," as he finally reached the end and gave a playful tug, "is your fifth distal phalanx bone."

She couldn't believe how completely absorbed he was by all of this. His tone was one of amusement, but she could see it in his face and in the tilt of his head. The trace of concentration. The way he seemed to be cataloguing the "evidence" of her offered hand. The way he seemed to be filing this seemingly fascinating information away in his mind. 

And she couldn't believe how turned on she was by all of this. 

The flush returned full force. 

Fortunately, he was still enthralled by the exhibit in the palm of his hand. He tapped the end of each finger as he went. "Your pinky finger is classified as the fifth digit, so everything is preceded by 'fifth'. When we move on to your ring finger, it is given the designation of 'fourth', so it's your fourth proximal phalanx bone, etc., and so on until we get to your thumb, which is, obviously, the first. The only difference to note is, your thumb doesn't have a middle phalanx bone; it goes from proximal right to distal." He curled his left thumb around hers and kneaded the soft base. "This is the Mound of Venus, named after a deity who later became associated with the Greek goddess Aphrodite and represents love and sexuality."

She closed her eyes at the feel of his thumb almost sensually massaging hers. God, that feels so g… "Wait a minute," she said, "that's not science, that's palmistry." He could only laugh his response. Raising her eyebrow, she decided to let him continue. "Well, go on, what does it mean, oh wise one?"

He shrugged and replied, "I don't know. That's not science, that's palmistry."

When he was rewarded with a grin, he scoured his mind to find something to keep her close, to keep this link between them. With his right hand, he gently grasped her wrist and tilted her arm back until it rested on her elbow. Sitting up, he was at eye level with her now, and saw her fragmented expression between splayed fingers. Using the thumb and middle finger of his left hand, he measured the distance between her pinky and thumb.

"The distance between your thumb and fifth phalanx is approximately the same as the distance between your wrist and the tip of the third phalanx." He turned his hand and placed his thumb at the base of her wrist and his middle finger at the tip of hers. Sure enough, the measurements were almost the same.

Unfortunately, this impromptu experiment was lost on Sara. Now that they were in such close proximity, her attention was drawn elsewhere. The long lashes that framed the blue pools to his soul. The jagged scar from the left eyebrow that curved along the inside of his nose. The mouth that could convey so many emotions with a simple alteration of pressure and line. The cleft in his chin, almost at odds with the seriousness of the man who possessed it. It was as if his Maker couldn't resist giving His serious science man at least one physical sexy conceit.

Neither spoke, and he wondered if it was because he had finally run out of things to say, or if she, too, had noticed that all the air seemed to have been siphoned out of the room.

Cautiously, as if not wanting to startle him, Sara slowly linked her fingers with his. The shift in his eyes was imperceptible, yet unmistakable. Surprise. Astonishment. Curiosity. And yet… not unwelcoming. This cue of encouragement barely outweighed the newfound anxiety it created in her stomach; an anxiety caused by either the present situation or the idea of what a future situation could hold, if only. If only she could…

Leaning forward, she closed her eyes and pressed her lips against the scar that had so enthralled her. He reflexively squeezed her hand, but did not let go. Did not say, "You shouldn't be doing this. I shouldn't be doing this. We shouldn't be doing this." In fact, she would have wondered if he had the air to create such sentences if she hadn't felt his warm, uneven breath along her jaw.

"Tell me more," she whispered.

"Uh, what… what would you like to know?" he asked, surprised that he could formulate the words as she softly nuzzled his cheek.

She pulled back and smiled. Waiting for his eyes to open, she finally said, "Whatever you want." Seeing his hesitation, her eyes trailed over his face until they stopped at his mouth. Without looking up, she grinned and suggested, "Tell me about mouths."

He watched her lips move as they formed the words she spoke. A tentative tongue made its appearance from his mouth and nervously applied moisture to his own lips.

"I… I don't really know that much about mouths, actually. Not, not human mouths."

"Mmmm?" she said by way of encouragement, so close now, she could almost feel the vibrations of his voice hum against her lips.

"I could… I could tell you about butterflies."

"Go on."

The fact that her left hand was now lazily brushing back and forth along his right forearm wasn't helping matters, but he ventured ahead anyway.

"The tongue of the butterfly is a long tube called a 'proboscis." She resumed her nuzzling. "It… it's actually split in half and…" Her lips touched the corner of his mouth. "And… it joins together like a straw to…"

The words stopped coming, but this time, it wasn't because he ran out of things to say, or because the air seemed to evaporate between them. It was because his bottom lip had somehow found itself between her teeth. And like a sudden clarifying epiphany, it opened the door to an entanglement of mouths and tongues, emotions and desires.

Flushed and breathless, she leaned back and brushed a thumb over the bruising evidence of their kiss. Not satisfied with her administrations, she bent forward again and lightly kissed his lips.

"Wow," she whispered. She took his broad smile to be a sign of his own surprise and pleasure, and she showed her thanks… by yawning.

He raised his eyebrow and gave a look of feigned offense. "Well, I'm glad you prefaced that with a 'Wow'," he dryly remarked.

She covered his lips with her fingers and quickly explained, "I'm sorry. It's just-"

Angling his mouth away, he finished, "It's just now, it's," he looked over her shoulder at the clock in the kitchen, "almost three o'clock and you're just realizing that you're tired."

She grinned sheepishly and nodded. Her fingers now drawn to the cleft in his chin, she barely managed to say, "I should go."

"No," he said, with such a note of finality in his voice that her eyes jumped up to his. "I mean," he now faltered under her scrutiny, "it's not safe for you to be driving in the state you're in." Gathering up whatever courage he had left, he added, "You could sleep here."

As much as she tried to prevent it, Sara couldn't help but show the amazement in her eyes.

Revising his suggestion, he amended, "I could sleep on the couch; the sheets on my bed have been recently changed." Now she had a different look in her eyes. "No?" he asked.

She shook her head.

"Well, I don't expect you to sleep on the couch," he said with some measure of chivalry.

Now she laughed.

"No?" he asked again.

"No," she said firmly.

God love him, she thought, the scientist is sorting out the problem. She could almost see the light bulb go on over his head.

"Oh," he said.

She slid off the stool and still joined by the hands that had never let go since the beginning, she led him away from the kitchen.

"C'mon," she teased, "you can tell me a bedtime story."

Grissom gave a light snort in reply. "I'll finish the one about the butterfly. You were obviously so captivated by it." She slapped his arm with her free hand. "I know that hand feels okay," he retorted, "but how about this one?" He lifted up the hand that led them to this moment. "Feel better?"

There was that smile again. "Yeah," she said. "Much better."


	2. Beyond metacarpals

Disclaimers and whatnot are in part one.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: I hadn't intended on doing a part two for "A Helping Hand", but this story kind of fits it, so here it is. I highly recommend you reading the first story, not because it's all that and a side of fries, but because you'll be surprised to find G'n'S in bed together at the beginning of this story if you don't! As always, for what it's worth, kudos to WP and JF for bringing so much more to the table than us viewers and amateur writers could have ever hoped. And bigger kudos to my beta reader, papiliondae, who brings way more to the table than I could ever have hoped. *grin*

*

Sunlight seeped through slits in the blinds, extending fingers of light into the darkened room, the rhythmic mechanics of the central air system, which kept the occupants of the room comfortable in their slumber, holding back the silence. However, a closer look would reveal an error or two in this picture.

First of all, they weren't sleeping, at least, one of them wasn't. Second, there was a hushed symphony of sounds. Heartbeats. Easy breathing. Her inarticulate sounds of peaceful slumber. The soft rasp of skin on skin as he lifted her hand from his chest to stroke her long fingers.

He was content to be here, to do this forever, until he was startled out of his reverie. 

"You have an odd fascination with my hands," Sara sleepily mumbled into his chest.

His laughter sent a rumble through her ear. "I seem to have an odd fascination with all of you," he admitted.

She lifted her head and looked at him. "I think that's the nicest thing anyone's ever said to me."

Turning his head, he returned her hand to his chest and reached across to tuck an errant strand of hair behind her ear. "You're cute with bed-head."

She sighed dramatically. "Couldn't you have let me bask in the glow of your compliment?"

"Don't worry. I'll give you more compliments in the future," he promised.

Pursing her lips as if giving this thought, Sara relented. "Okay then."

He shook his head, eyes bright with amusement. "If your bed head is anything to go by, I would hazard a guess that you slept well?"

She flopped back into her pillow and gave a dreamy grin. "I slept great."

"Did I hog the covers?"

Now her grin grew into a full smile. "Yes, in fact, you did hog the covers. But that's fine, it just gave me an excuse to get closer to you." When she saw his eyes widen in amazement, she asked, "Is that okay with you?"

His brows came down in confusion. "Of course it's okay with me. Why would it bother me if I hogged the covers?"

She reached across and lazily slapped his shoulder. When his laughter died down, she repeated, "No, seriously, Griss. Is… this… okay?"

Turning on his side, he dared to let his fingertips linger along her collarbone. His eyes watched this action until he could finally resist her gaze no longer. "I have to admit, this is a little… different for me. I haven't had a woman in my bed for a long time." When he saw the look of relief on her face, he couldn't help but quip, "At least, not a woman who was fully dressed."

His hand quickly left her collarbone as it came up to deflect the flurry of flailing blows she was raining down on him. "Hey! Hey! Ow!" His laughter was only making it worse for himself. "I give, I give! 'Uncle' already!"

Satisfied with the outcome, Sara snorted an exaggerated, "Hmmph!" and turned her back to him.

Trying in vain to keep the amusement out of his voice, he leaned into her. "So is this something I should get used to in this relationship?" His hand found the patch of skin along her ribcage that her twisted shirt had left exposed. "You're going to beat me up for talking about a non-existent other woman?"

"I'm going to knock you on your ass for thinking of another woman, non-existent or not." Her attempt to say this sternly was thwarted by the warmth of his hand on her skin. She turned around slowly, in order not to break their contact. "Is this what we're in?" she asked. "A relationship?"

His touch tickled her abdomen as his fingers moved upward. His eyes seemed to darken with every inch of progress. "I don't know, Sara," he conceded. "Maybe not a relationship this very minute, but I think we're on the threshold and the door's wide open."

She seemed satisfied with this admission. "Okay."

His fingers now grazed the band of her bra and brushed against the satin curve of her breast. Her mouth opened to let out a whispered moan and his eyes narrowed as if filing this sound away, and the gesture that caused such a sound to come from the mouth of his Sara. He smiled at the endearment his mind had given her. His Sara.

The smile was short-lived, however, when he heard her say, "I should have taken this bra off earlier." His smile was replaced by an open-mouthed look of shock. She cupped his chin in her hand to close his mouth, and she winked, "These things are a bitch to sleep in."

His eyes narrowed once again, but this time in amusement. "I see." 

Stretching out his fingers, he gently curled them around her breast, the delicate fabric of her bra smooth under his palm.

"I think," she took a shaky breath, "I think we should examine your hands next time. They're… oh, they're much nicer than mine." She covered his burgeoning grin by capturing his mouth with her own.

He hadn't lied to Sara. It had been a long time since he'd had a woman in his bed, regardless of her state of undress. And now here he was, draped across the body of a woman he had yearned for since… since he could remember. Her hand in his hair, his hand up her shirt, their mouths entangled and entwined. If this was a dream, he never wanted to wake up.

The shrill bell made them both jump.

"Jesus!" Sara exclaimed in surprise.

Grissom looked around, for a split second wondering if it had been a dream. Relieved that although the alarm was still ringing, Sara remained in his arms, the corner of his mouth tugged upward. "No, it's my clock."

Reluctantly separating from her, he twisted over and clicked the alarm off. Rolling back, he draped his arm around her waist and rested his head in the crook of her shoulder.

She idly drew patterns on his shoulder. "You don't have an electric alarm clock."

"No." When no other response was forthcoming from her, he lifted his head slightly. "What?"

Grinning, she shook her head and replied, "Nothing."

Eyebrow raised, Grissom repeated, "What?"

She gave a small shrug. "I don't know. I just find something very… comforting in knowing you have a manual alarm clock, that's all."

His eyebrow came down to join the other in a frown. "You can be very odd at times, Miss Sidle."

"Part of the fun is trying to figure me out."

"Oh, really? Well then I shall enjoy the journey as much as the destination."

"You know," she whispered into his mouth, "you could cover a lot of distance if you only had a snooze button on your clock."

He kissed her softly. "What are nine minutes when a lifetime isn't enough?" When he saw the expression on her face, he smiled. "See? I told you I'd compliment you more in the future."

She gave him that wide gap-tooth smile he had loved since the day he met her. Returning his kiss, she said, "I think we complement each other."

Before this combination of kisses and wandering hands could lead them on to the myriad of desires running through his mind, Grissom reluctantly rolled away from her and got out of bed. He returned her pout of dismay with a grin, although it did take him longer than necessary to relinquish her hand, his fingertips fighting to keep in contact with hers for just a moment more.

Their connection finally broken, he walked around the foot of the bed and towards the door.

"The bathroom's to the right," he told her. "Use whatever you like. I'll make you breakfast."

Always one to find the positive in any situation, Sara stretched out across the bed that now solely belonged to her. 'Like a cat,' Grissom thought, as she uncurled her long limbs and arched her back contentedly.

"Mmmm, sounds good," she all but purred. "I could get used to this."

Twenty four hours ago, this would have been the kind of situation that would have made Grissom run and hide, eager to avoid anything resembling emotional involvement. Of course, twenty four hours ago, Sara Sidle wasn't laying claim to his bed. Or his heart.

"So could I," he whispered. Before she could express whatever feelings her eyes were conveying, he smiled. "Omelette sound okay?"

She returned his smile and nodded. "Omelette sound great."

"Okay."

He had just turned the corner when she called out after him. "There better not be any bugs in mine!"

*

He pulled into his parking spot, briefly scanning the lot for Sara's car, not really expecting to see it, so not particularly surprised that she hadn't arrived yet. After her shower and a breakfast with him, she'd left for her apartment and a change of clothes.

So now here he was, sitting in his office pretending to read the paper when what he was really doing was waiting for his heart to start beating again. He strained to distinguish each new voice outside his door, with every movement, his eyes jerked up expectantly. The echo of footsteps from the hall had him flicking through his mental files; was it the match he was looking for?

He had to laugh. How many times had he caught himself waiting like this? Waiting for a glimpse, a smile, a look in his direction? His mind might have registered the recent seismographic shift in his life, but his senses were still practicing usual habits, keeping up his customary surveillance. Even today, after all that just occurred, he was still waiting for her. 'The more things change, the more they stay the same,' he smiled.

" 'Grinning Grissom' just doesn't have the same ring to it as 'Gruesome Grissom'," noted a voice from the door.

Startled out of his reflection, he looked up and saw Catherine. "Hello."

"Hello yourself," she answered. Jerking her thumb over her shoulder, she said, "I thought you'd be in the conference room by now."

He flicked out his wrist and glanced at his watch. "I'll be there in ten minutes."

Catherine tilted her head and narrowed her eyes. "You okay?"

"Why wouldn't I be?"

"I don't know. I guess the smile caught me off guard."

He made a face of mock amusement.

"Okay…" sensing nothing more forthcoming, she backed up. "I'll see you in- Oops!" Her sentence was cut off as she turned to leave, colliding with Sara. "Sara! I didn't see you there."

"It's okay, I just showed up."

The same look she had given Grissom was now directed at Sara. Stepping to the side, Catherine looked at the young brunette, then over to Grissom, then back to Sara again. "Smiling Sara and Grinning Grissom. How interesting." As the two subjects remained mute, Catherine looked curiously at Sara, "Speaking of Grissom, isn't that his shirt?"

  
Before her brain could warn her it was a trick, Sara quickly looked down at her shirt in a panic.

Pleased her little ploy had worked, Cath gave a throaty laugh. "I see! Well, well, well." Sara's panic was now directed at the older woman. Gentler now, Catherine said, "Look, no one is going to find out from me, I promise. I won't tell a soul." The playfulness returned to her voice and she gave a little wink. Patting Sara on the cheek, she added, "I won't have to, sweetie." And with that, she was gone.

Frozen in the doorway, Sara lightly hit her forehead repeatedly with her fist. "Shit, shit, shit."

Grissom came around from his desk and stood in front of her. "She won't say anything. No matter how much she'd love to be the bearer of the news of the century, she knows there's more to it than just what goes on between us."

Exhaling loudly, Sara conceded, "I know. It wasn't Cath I was worried about." Seeing his questioning look, she continued, "You know, all the way here, all I could think about was how this was going to work. How we were going to work. At work. And I couldn't even make it through the first ten minutes without my big doofy smile giving us away."

"First of all, 'doofy' is not a word."

"Grissom, don't joke about this. What are we going to do?"

"Well, funny enough, I, too, was giving this some thought on the way to work. And I couldn't stop returning to the evidence."

"Which is?"

"Which is, this situation is going to call for me to pretend I don't have feelings for you, that my heart rate doesn't jump through the roof every time you're near me, and that all I want to do is kiss you." She couldn't help but smile. "So," he shrugged, "it's no different from what I've been doing for the past two years. Piece of cake."

Her smile dropped and she jabbed him in the shoulder. "That's not funny! This is serious."

He pressed his lips together hard, in a vain attempt to disguise his grin. Stepping even closer, he lowered his voice. "Look, I know this isn't going to be easy, and I can't promise difficult times in the future, but we'll try and muddle our way through things as they arise." 

He handed her a folder, and when she took it, he used it as a shield to disguise the fact he was caressing her hand. Her eyes softened and the corner of her mouth twitched. "The thing is," he whispered, "I don't want to miss all the little things that are happening now, because we're worrying about things that might happen in the future. In fact, the furthest ahead I want to think is the end of this shift."

"Oh?" she asked, just as quietly as he had spoken. "And what's happening tonight after the shift?"

"I was going to ask Greg to come over to discuss Pink Floyd's effect on concept albums, what do you think?" Stroking her hand gently with his fingertips, he asked, "Will you come over?"

"I don't know," she replied. "You're going to have to find some way to uninvite Greg."

"Done," he quipped.

Her broad smile reappeared. "Okay." Then, as if something had just occurred to her, she shook her head. "Oh, I can't. I had planned on putting some overtime in tonight."

Grissom nodded. "Ah, here it is, the moral dilemma of being your boss and your paramour." She grinned at this word. He pursed his lips, as if giving this dilemma some thought. "What are you spending overtime on?"

"Well, I had this interesting conversation last night with my 'paramour' about hands that got me thinking I needed to refresh my knowledge of anatomy. So I was going to go down to the morgue and spend some quality time with Doc Robbins."

"Ah, I see. Well that's one dilemma solved." She raised an eyebrow at him. "You see," he clarified, "you can't bill the lab for that time. That's your own personal interest which must be done on your own personal time. Of course, I could arrange private tutoring for you."

Her eyes widened at his suggestion. This playful seductiveness was a new addition to the Grissom repertoire. She curled a finger around his and squeezed. "I may never log in another hour of overtime ever again."

He felt a small heat creep into his face, surprised at his own newfound brazenness and the fact that it was Sara who was inspiring and returning it. "Perhaps we should concentrate on logging in our scheduled time before we start thinking of overtime." 

Reluctantly pulling his hand away, he looked at his watch. "We've got two minutes." He held up a finger, stifling the wisecrack he could almost hear in his mind as she opened her mouth to speak. "I'll walk you to the conference room."

With his hand on the small of her back, he gently guided her out of the office. Leaning into him ever-so-briefly, she whispered, "Kill joy."

*

They reached the room with thirty seconds to spare, and as Sara dropped her slender frame into a chair, Grissom made his way over to the coffee machine. Cath was sipping her own coffee while Nick and Warrick were catching up on sports scores over a game of cards. Cath gave Nick a nudge under the table with her foot and looked over at Sara. 

Palming the twenty dollar bill Cath had just slid across the table, Nick played a card, then greeted his brunette colleague. "Hey, Sara."

"Hey, Nick."

"Is that a new shirt?" he asked.

The loud clank behind him was the sound of Grissom dropping his spoon on the counter in surprise. Fortunately for Sara, the phrase "her jaw dropped to the floor" was only an expression, though her mouth did a pretty good job of enacting the words.

Oblivious, Nick looked at Cath, then at Sara, then back to Cath again. "What? What did I say?"

-end


End file.
